Corvayne had made sure to report his findings to Belle and to Preshe. He rightly assumed Gylwin heard him, given she now had a clone attached to the bottom of his hovercycle, compressed in a way that reminded him of a bomb waiting to go off. He highly suspected she had been leveling up like crazy on wildlife outside the sect, but without a gauge on levels he just had to go off that she was using powers he hadn't seen to create clones. He guessed he was going to go in with her as backup, scope out the suspicious spots in the city, get into some sort of trouble, then root out whatever it was that had been attacking the sect's members. Easy.
Except after he reported to Rio at the headquarters, right before leaving, he got on his bike, turned the key, and found the assistant sect leader sitting sideways behind him on the Hoverbike.
"Uhh... Miss?"
"You will address me as Acting Sect Leader Rio, or Miss Cumberlin." Her gaze seemed to say that he was less than garbage. But [[Unity]] was feeding him excitement from her.
"Oh. I'm surprised there's not a Mr. Cumberlin. Acting Sect Leader Rio, are you looking for a ride?"
"You are going to investigate the locations associated with the numbers and messages you uncovered. I'm interested that your outsider's view of the problem has come up with novel solutions."
Corvayne handed her one of the Jade Tablets. "Can you tell me, Miss Cumberlin, where the fetching creature on that sex ad was telling me to go?"
He was glancing back and caught her nose wrinkle. "Tch, this proves those young bucks have no concept of romance... that pose... is she asking for a medical exam?"
Corvayne started guiding the bike towards Neo Nashville, going slow enough to handle the turns to get him on the right road without hitting one of a few twenty foot tall pickup trucks puttering around. "Acting Sect Leader Rio... you've never asked a buddy if they thought it was just saddle sores?"
"Cheeky. You are aware I could end your life in a mere moment."
Corvayne felt it was an empty threat. If anything, the banter amused her. "If Miss Cumberlin you are in fact aiming to end these murders, committing one will not help."
"I could rip your tongue out." She cracked a knuckle.
"Acting Sect Leader Rio, please forgive me. According to this ad, I might need my tongue to loosen up our quarry."
She created a barrier around them as they hit the woods and Corvayne bumped up the speed and sent them upwards. He felt her hand tighten a moment on his cloak.
“I can take us lower.”
“Do as you wish.” She said, acting blasé. Corvayne deftly moved them to follow the road, switching to the highest speed lane which had them blowing past traffic merely going a hundred miles an hour.
Neo Nashville came a little faster than when they had been rolling along on the two story truck. It was still noon and during the day, Corvayne could see some of the nicer buildings that had been drowned out by glowing lights, though there were still plenty of neon and moving screens promising cowgirls and gunfights and good whiskey for whomever bought their products.
The city was a little taller compared to Cascadia, and there was a different vibe on the streets as they slowed down to glide off the highway and into town proper. The buildings were mostly concrete or some floor 43 equivalent that gave everything tan and gray colors, every so often propped up by a sign or interesting designed building curved like a saddle, or a park with two great bronze revolvers crossed. There was a statue in one park that Corvayne thought looked like himself if he was prone to staring off into the distance under a cowboy hat. Rio motioned for him to detour, and sure enough it was an iron statue of Dusky Creekwood, the Sect Leader. His shins showed signs of many hands touching them, discoloring his boots especially the spurs.
They were the only people near the statue, the urban park mostly used as a way to cut from one block to another. There was beeping of traffic and the sounds of birds fluttering.
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Corvayne felt a little bad for the woman riding behind him, as he could feel bittersweet longing radiate from her. He avoided looking back, instead trying to see if he could see all the way down the street to the outside of town. Nope, it was misaligned past the river. They did have some nice green spaces built between the huge concrete buildings.
“Go.” She said after a while, and he tipped the cowboy hat he hand on and went forward, moving out of downtown and moving towards one of the bridges over the river to long lines of commercial buildings. Clearly a more upscale setting compared to the grimy side of the city he had been on before.
He was thankful for the shield around them keeping things quiet. “Are they going to recognize you?”
“Tch.” She did something, and Corvayne could see in his rearview mirror her unnatural jade skin color and dark eyes morphing colors, softening a little as her robes changed to more drab colors. Her hair shifted from the black widow pattern she had been wearing that morning to a strawberry blonde. It was odd, she looked just like anyone else. A brown eye caught his, and she practically radiated embarrassment.
“Eyes on the road.” She said, with a small pulse of annoyance.
The highway dipped between huge malls and suburban apartments, then they got into smaller streets where smaller office parks gave way to a district of vacant strip malls, theaters and empty parking lots. Much of it was placed against a growing wall.
“This is the end of the sects expanded safe zone.” Rio explained, her voice having a little bit of a squeak she hadn't had before.
Large towers and barbed wire and glowing red lights loomed above the concrete barrier. There were a few restaurants and stores open as they crept towards their final goal, a non-descript two story mini-mall, tucked away between a dilapidated gas station and a take-out place that proudly announced it served 'Floor 35 Cuisine' with a picture of a walking hotdog with horns wrapped in noodles.
The storefront, just called 'Heavens Palace - Cultivators Club' didn't announce if it was a strip club, or a bar, or a massage joint, but it radiated seedy promise the way the closed piano lesson place next to it did not.
It was also very clearly marked with a 'CLOSED' sign. Corvayne tapped into his compass. It spun slowly, very slowly, around clockwise. Comms received.
“I have a feeling we need to wait. This isn't a daytime place.”
“When's the darn thing open?” Corvayne had very strong feelings at that moment about how Acting Sect Leader Rio would look with a piece of wheat in her mouth and overalls stomping through a rice field barefoot. He suspected it was conjured up from being immersed in the culture... or [[Unity]] was influencing him back, which is something he suspected it would do if he hooked up to too many people thinking the same way. He centered himself on the stronger links to his friends and family. Some of the ones he had not touched in a while had moved a little bit, which he guessed may have been the link connecting through the closest portal.
“Grab a bite to eat? A drink? Go to the mall? I mean, any of those Acting Sect Leader Rio?”
“Just call me Rio when I'm incognito!” She fumed, gave him an elbow. “Steer us to that restaurant yonder.”
She gestured to a family diner style place with a friendly cow serving a steak, which Corvayne thought was rather bleak, but he supposed the cow had aspects of a Lesser Bessie, and the steak was probably from a cow that was related to the floor 43 version the same way a gecko might claim kinship with a dragon.
He parked his bike in one of the empty spots next to a handicapped space and got off, then offered a hand to Rio, who got off and took it, then lead him into the restaurant. “I ain't been to one of these in ages.” She said, and picked a table by the window. The waitress looked at Corvayne and smiled.
“Sit anywhere you want sweetheart!” Clearly unaware of the ruler of this city and probably the entire floor for thousands of miles around was glaring at her. He slid into the booth opposite of Rio.
“Sheesh. You stand out to much, you need to stow your gear. You look like a dang bounty hunter.”
“I'm a young master whom is watching my younger sist-” Danger, radiating from her. “Young master with a same-age lovely fiancee I'm taking on a date, but I am a wastrel whom has cast his straying gaze at cultivating outside his perfectly reasonable relationship with his soon to be father-in-laws tutelage.”
Some of this pleased her. She turned an eye from the window to him, then turned and told the waitress to bring two coffees.
“Non-fat creamer, I gotta watch my figure.” She drawled and the waitress laughed and came back with two cups.
Corvayne did a quick scan and saw what looked like a trucker reading a paper, positioned to keep an eye on his truck parked sideways through five spaces, and what looked like two men doing a deal. Unity had all three radiating boredom, though the waitress was very interested in them.
As was Rio. “We have time, cowboy. I wanna hear your story.”
“I'm sure you've heard it from everyone in my group, as well as the source that lead you to Kirae.”
“Kirae kept her cards pretty close, and she doesn't know much about you. I thought she was lying when she said you're the leader.”
“Wick's the leader, main character, hero of the story. I'm just a guy with a spear.” He took his coffee and drank it. Bitter.
Rio added a packet of sweetener. “We can trade. You tell me a story, make up as much as you want, and I'll tell you what I know about the sect leader.”
Corvayne thought about it. “You want to see if I knew him. But I gotta tell you, my memory is spotty.”
“Who do you think he is?” She was leaning in a little, which let Corvayne see down her robe if he dared not keep his eyes on hers. Warrior training helped here. Mind over matter. Also she was several times stronger than him and had crushed him like an ant when they had fought.
“Might be my father. Keep in mind, most of my tribe had those three part names. I don't know if Dusty-X-Creekwood was Dusty-Cross-Creekwood and is a rename of Half-Claimed-Crown, which is his name.”
“Corvayne Claim Crown? CCC.”
“I don't think they have a family angle. They are probably not the 'real' name they were born with. Someone with a lot of insight kept calling me Nameless One.”
He felt a spike of amusement from Gylwin at that, whom had sat down dressed as a elf cowgirl and started working on a crossword while waiting to order. Must be a reference he didn't get.
Ignoring his backup, he cleared his throat and mentally started planning how to gloss over time travel. “My first solid memory was sitting on a tower, in the desert. It looked over my village, a place I had come to loath...”
He refilled his coffee and kept talking, putting Rio's rapt attention out of his mind as he focused on telling his story so far.